Pleasure boats bob at their anchors in the small, coastal Norman city of Fecamp, France. But in the late 19th century, it was fishing boats that filled the harbor, delivering catches from faraway Newfoundland.
In fact, Fecamp has been a fisherman's town for centuries, and that history will take center stage in the Fisheries Museum, slated for launch in February.
The facility, which cost nearly $16 million, is housed in a repurposed fish processing plant overlooking Fecamp's harbor. A new, glass-enclosed belvedere sits atop the original building, ready to accommodate an introductory gallery while providing sweeping views of the harbor, from indoors or from outdoor terraces.
Fecamp, a city of about 20,000, already was on the tourist map as one of Normandy's coastal resort towns and as the home of Benedictine and B&B liqueurs. Visitors can tour the Palais Benedictine, which houses the distillery and a museum.
Prior to the annual Rendez-vous en France Travel Market, held in Rouen this spring, I participated in a press tour designed to showcase what's new in Normandy, including:
• The D-Day Experience, housed in a hangar next to its older sister facility, the Dead Man's Corner Museum, in Saint-Come-du-Mont, debuted in 2015. Both facilities emphasize that all items on display were used in the 1944 invasion of Normandy and are often linked to specific combatants.
The Experience includes a mock briefing for paratroopers headed to Normandy on D-Day, followed by a "ride" aboard a C-47 aircraft that survived its D-Day duty. Once strapped in, we knew when the planes took off, when we were shot at, when others were shot down — all through sound effects and moving images in the plane's windows.
• It was hell for civilians, too, as 20,000 died in Normandy within 100 days. They and other civilians are remembered in Falaise at the Civilians in Wartime Memorial, which opened in spring 2016. Part of the facility sits on the ruins of a house destroyed by Allied bombs.
The memorial lies at the foot of Falaise Castle, William the Conqueror's birthplace and Falaise's first claim to tourism fame.
• The small, riverside town of Caudebec-en-Caux opened MuseoSeine in April 2016. The compact museum focuses on the story of the lower Seine from Paris to its mouth on the English Channel. Tides travel up the meandering Seine to Rouen and beyond, but they once were so dramatic at Caudebec that tourists came to watch. Restored boats from other eras occupy the museum's larger spaces indoors and out.
• In 1431, Joan of Arc was sentenced to death at the Archbishop's Palace in Rouen, and in a second, posthumous trial in the palace in 1456, she was rehabilitated. Since spring 2015, the palace has hosted the Joan of Arc Historical Exhibition.
Visitors, with audio guides in hand, move from room to room on a prearranged route and schedule in order to, in effect, attend the martyred saint's second trial. Actors portray the judge and witnesses. Film clips of trial segments and stage-setting period artwork are projected onto walls or screens.
• The Lawn Tennis Club of Deauville-Normandie, France's first grass court tennis club, opened in June 2016.
Also in the beach town of Deauville, the 1912 Normandy Hotel, a luxury property, reopened in April 2016 after a refurbishment that reduced the room count from 300 to 271 to accommodate more suites.